WAP/WML is still the way to browse the internet on a phone

By Alvin Alexander. Last updated: June 3 2016

Interesting discovery of the day: Even on an iPhone -- which was supposed to transform the "browsing the internet on a phone" experience -- almost all of the websites I have bookmarked and visit on a daily basis are WAP/WML websites, including WAP/WML versions of the NY Times, SJ Mercury News, Facebook, Google News, and ESPN.

I just "discovered" this during an email discussion with a friend, when we were writing about small displays on netbooks and phones. Subconsciously I think I knew I was making this switch to WML sites, but only just now did I consciously realize what I had been doing. While it's true that I do occasionally visit other websites with my iPhone, those HTML sites are clearly the 20% in the 80/20 rule.

To summarize, from what I've seen, I think the iPhone offers the best phone-based web-browsing experience available today, but IMHO the WAP/WML interface is still the best way to use these relatively small displays on a regular basis.

(Don't get me wrong: it's cool that you can browse the internet on a phone, and believe me, it's the first thing I did last night after watching the new Star Trek movie. I had no idea Winona Ryder was in that movie, and when I saw her name in the credits I had to figure out what character she played. To do this I went to the IMDB website, and was willing to type, wait, enlarge, type, wait, enlarge, click, enlarge to get the answer, but generally speaking, I'm not willing to go through all that grief.)